(Mis)Adventures in Paradise

Hey everyone. We're back for another installation of our sporadically updated blog. The last few days have been a wild ride. The first photo you just looked at was from the Cuba Street Carnival, a bi-annual festival in Wellington. Unbeknownst to us, the Carnival was scheduled for the weekend we were to be in town, thereby limiting our hostel choices. The Carnival was actually a great time, with closed off streets and a nighttime parade. It really made our Wellington experience pretty exciting.
We departed on the ferry to the South Island on Sunday morning, and arrived in the lovely town of Nelson Sunday afternoon. Our experience there could not have been better, with a near-bed-and-breakfast experience at the greatest hostel in New Zealand.
Then the trouble started. We arrived in Takaka for our next wwoofing (farming) stint and our host was not at the bus stop. After a frantic hour, we ended up at a hostel and found that our host had come to the bus stop at the wrong time. We decided that was a bad sign and nixed the wwoofing all together (i.e. more vacation). The next day we borrowed bikes from the hostel and rode to the beach (about 10k, see picture 2). After a lovely few hours we decided to beat the storm clouds home. Our bike tire had other ideas. We carefully navigated the curvy roads until a very generous couple offered us a ride back to our hostel, bikes in tow.

p.s. For those of you having trouble posting, we've talked to the blog administrators and hopefully the problem is solved.

Tongariro Crossing

Sorry for the delay. We're been constantly on the road since we left Naomi's place on the 18th. The pictures above are from our one day trek on Tongariro Crossing. The hike is meant to be the best one day trek in all of New Zealand. Unfortunately, as you can see from the pictures, it was quite misty (it felt the way we imagined it felt for the two characters from the Road...either that or the hobbits' journey to Mordor). Luckily, the mist cleared long enough for us to see one of the main sights of the trek, the Emerald Lakes. It was a beautiful hike - completely prehistoric for the first bit and then we ascended to the top of the red crater (which was completely covered in mist). At this point it was rugged and had volcanic rock formations on the mountainside. The post card picture portion of the hike was definitely the Emerald Lakes (pictured above). We then headed down to the lunch hut where we munched on peanut butter sandwiches and pumpkin seeds and made our way down to our pick up spot. It was pretty amazing because the desolate, volcanic, mountainous landscape was suddenly transformed into a lush jungle. We even thought for a while that we had made a wrong turn! All in all it was pretty cool and so were the victorious Cadbury chocolates and Mac beers that we had to celebrate afterwards.

Castle Rock

We're almost finished with our first wwoofing location. We can't believe we've been in the Coromandel for two weeks. Yesterday we figured we better do something exciting, since most of the time we've spent sitting on the beach, sitting at the creek side, or huddled in our caravan pining for burritos. Our journey began with a quick hitch into town to stock up on the necessities: smoked mackerel, granola bars, and apples. After a 4k walk to the start of the 309 Road, we parked our butts on the side of the road, awaiting the assistance of a kind soul (see photo 1). In the background you can see our destination, Castle Rock. After 1/2 hour of twiddling our thumbs, a wonderful pair of kiwis picked us up and drove us right to the trail head. After searching for the trail head for another half hour (that's right, they dropped us right at it and we still couldn't find it), we did the hour climb to the top (see photo 2). It was a mildly challenging hike and was a good warm up for what's in store for us at the end of the week (see photos not yet posted). After another kind soul brought us all the way back into town, we picked up a bottle of wine and some artichoke hearts for a shared dinner with eight of our closest friends (Naomi, our wwoof host; Simon, German wwoofer; Ruth, Scotty and Roni, Naomi's kiwi neighbors who work at the market and garden with us; Naomi's son and son's girlfriend; Lynn, English herbalist visiting Coromandel). We'll definitely be sad to say goodbye to all our new friends but it's time to move on!

Hot and Sweaty

Hello! It's Monday and we spent the morning shovelling horse poop and turning over beds. The work is only hard because it's a million degrees in the sun and they have some blood thirsty mosquitoes in this area.
The top picture is from a hike we did through a small kauri grove on Saturday. Dave had us take the "roughing it" road to the water where that picture is shot. It was a bit of an adventure and there were times when I wished I had some bread crumbs so we could find our way back through the brush.
The next picture shows our wwoofer accommodations. To the left, is our lovely camper van that you've heard so much about. To the right are our dining quarters fully equipped with propane stove and a refrigerator. (Not pictured is the outhouse that we use to go to the bathroom) If you head down behind the eating area there's a wonderful little creek AKA "the swimming hole" that has a nice little family of eels living in it.
That's all for today! Hope you all are well and miss you!!

Rings Road Herbal Dispensery

Hey there patient readers. Sorry we haven't posted in a while (and that there is no accompanying picture for this post), but we do not have an internet connection in our lovely camper. We do, however, have large spiders, mosquitoes, and plenty of flies to go around. Today (Sunday) is our day off from the typical two-hour workday and we plan to spend it hitching around to more remote locations. The weather is hot, the scenery is amazing, the town is quaint, and folks are quite friendly. We'll be busy lounging on secluded beaches, so we'll post some pictures when we have a chance.

Superbowl XLIII

In case you guys were worried, we found an American themed bar called the Mustang Saloon where we watched the superbowl. Trying to be inconspicuous with the camera, we couldn't capture the full Amercian-ness of the establishment in the photo. But in case you're curious: every employee wore a cowboy hat and NFL jersey, swinging saloon-style doors, deer antlers, license plates hung on the walls, and much much more.

As for tomorrow (now today for us but two days later for you!), we plan to go on a day hike, maybe check out a beach and then we head off to Cormandel Town for our first farm. More to come later!

Queen Street, Auckland, NZ

7 am this morning and don't we look well rested. Thinking of going to the Auckland museum today and finding a place where we can watch the superbowl without getting cross-eyed looks...Brain dead right now. Will write more when our brains function above 20% of capacity.